“You were right, you know,” he said finally.
“About what?”
“Why I stayed. I didn’t have anything better waiting. The enclave was better than being alone.”
“You’re not alone,” I said. “And you never will be. We’re partners now.”
Fade smiled then. I didn’t know why. Until he said, “My dad had a partner. I don’t remember her.”
“Oh?” I wondered if his dad had been a Hunter too, some Topside variety I didn’t know about. The whole world couldn’t be populated with people like Stalker.
“She was my mother.”
The words struck me like a question, but I didn’t have an answer. “Come on. I found some water on the shelves. We need to clean your arms up.”
“The cuts aren’t that deep,” he protested.
“And if they get infected—”
“I know.” He followed me back into the shop, where I walked along the shelves finding things I might be able to use. Some of them even looked like they might be suitable for tending wounds.
Fade winced when I unwrapped the cloth strips. I tried to be careful, but the dried blood made it stick. With perfect gravity, I stared at the way they’d made the cuts run parallel to his Hunter marks. Now he bore twelve. Part of me wished I could seal them properly, so his arms would say to anyone, I’m twice the Hunter you are. But Topside such symbols were meaningless. They were just scars. Nobody would admire him for having more. I hated that loss too.
Head bent, I washed his wounds and applied the salve Banner had given me. The primitive part of me didn’t think I should use it — whatever power she had given to its making would fail because of her death. But it was all we had, and I wanted him to heal.
He didn’t show further signs of discomfort. I sliced up one of the shirts for bandages, and turned the soft white side to his cuts. The outside was slick like the clothing I wore, and should keep the rain out. It seemed like a very useful fabric. Too bad the making of it had been lost. But then, everything I knew was lost too. I felt like I must learn everything again, like a brat, or face painful consequences.
When I finished tying the cloth, I looked up to tell him he could go, only to find a steely, fixed expression on his face. He didn’t look away. His hands came up to frame my face, warm against my cheeks. Before he bent his head, I knew what he was going to do. Touch his lips to mine. Oh, and I wanted him to. He left me the chance to back away and break his hold. I stilled, hardly daring to breathe. The old refrain of can’t and shouldn’t sank beneath the weight of new words like, please and yes.
This time I did wrap my arms around his neck. I met him on raised toes and melted into him. I breathed his breath and tasted the essence of him. He was the heat of a fire and the sweetness of the moon I’d only just met. No wonder Breeders were so cheerful, I thought, breathless.
“I never belonged anywhere until I met you,” he said, resting his cheek against my hair.
“I thought I did.”
Remembering the enclave gave me a pang. I would always miss Stone and Thimble. I would worry about Twist and hope the brats were doing well, especially Girl26. But it wasn’t my place. I knew that now. There was a reason besides pity I had sacrificed myself for Stone.
“And now?”
I couldn’t lie to him. “I was born there. I expected to die there. If I’d never left, I think I would’ve been content. I believed what they told me about the surface. When we started climbing that day, I thought I’d die of fear.”
“Not you,” he said. “I’ve never seen you defeated. You were so determined to prove to everyone you deserved to be a Huntress, when nobody questioned it but you.”
That astonished me. “What do you mean?”
“You were among the best. If not for Crane’s physical strength, you would’ve been facing me in the finals. But I think you doubted it because from the beginning you didn’t have the same hardness as the rest of the Hunters. It’s not easy for you.”
“No,” I said softly, thinking of the blind brat we’d failed to save.
“And that’s why I—”
Before he could finish his thought, Tegan found us. “So this is where you two are hiding.”
The moment was broken, so I led the way back to the room with the sofas, where we’d left the can of cherries. I handed her the open tin. “Try it.”
“It looks—oh.” After one wary taste, like me, she dug in with hooked fingers.
I saw why Fade had enjoyed watching me eat. Her pleasure was contagious and it found its way to my face in a quiet smile. We let her finish the rest; I figured she deserved something sweet.
“I have a couple more in here. Why don’t you bolt us in for the night?” While Fade locked the door, I rummaged in my bag. “Let’s see what else is for dinner.”
The first can we popped open smelled fishy, but not rancid. Over the years, I’d grown fairly expert at detecting whether such food could be safely eaten. Judging by the color and texture, this actually was fish. The three of us divided it up. I knew we would need the energy, no telling how long before we’d eat so well again. I also had a tin that read, “Mixed Vegetables.” The multicolored stuff in there tasted none too good, and it was mushy, but it filled our bellies.
“Thanks for taking me with you,” Tegan said.
Fade sighed. “Don’t thank us yet. We’re heading north. By the time the journey’s done, you might wish you’d stayed with the Wolves. We don’t know what’s out there.”
“I’d like to find out.” Her look held a sweet kind of hunger, a longing that didn’t devour, only the need for truth.
I understood that look. Since I had let go of the possibility I could change everything for the brats, I had begun to throb with the desire to understand why things happened, why some people lived under the ground, like our enclave, the Freaks, and the Burrowers, and why some stayed Topside and turned into the greatest monsters of all.
“Do you still have that book?” Fade asked me.
Wordless, I laid hands on it in my bag and gave it to him. The light shining through the distant window was sufficient to see the pages. Without asking if we were interested, he opened it and began to read. I listened until my eyes grew heavy, and I slumped over onto his legs. I dreamed of boys who gleamed red-gold, and girls with shadows in their skin.
Pearl
It took us two days to find the part of the ruins where Fade thought his father’s friend had lived. We traveled in the dark and avoided the gangers as best we could. The markings helped with that, and we stayed away from the areas that bore the most paint. Still, it was slow going.
The air smelled different here, sharper, stronger. Each open-mouth breath tasted of that salty, tinned fish. Tegan noticed it too; she lifted her face and then took off. Fade called to her, but she ignored him. I ran after her because I wanted to know what was causing the change too. We drew up short when the world ended. Below, a sharp drop, down to loose earth, and beyond that, water. I had never seen anything like it or even imagined; it met the sky for vastness. In the distance, they kissed in whispering shades of blue, deepening as the stars twinkled in reflected light. I drew in my breath, overcome.
“Have you seen this before?” I whispered to Fade.
“Once. But I wasn’t sure I remembered right. I thought I might have dreamed it.”
In my mind’s eye, I saw him half his height, clinging to his sire’s hand and watching the water tear high against the rocks. I saw no ending to it, just this beginning, or perhaps I had it wrong, and this was the ending of all things. Certainly it felt that way to me, as I gazed in aching silence, and refused to weep for the wonders the enclave brats would never see.